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Let's have a look at how the research into flexible, open learning spaces translates into action. Below are three New Zealand schools that have been developed using the latest theories on modern learning and spaces. Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the building are a container for the learning we choose to place into them; and that curriculum, pedagogy, assessment practices, relationships and culture are just as important as the spaces, if not more important.

Case study: Stonefields School, Auckland

Stonefields is made up of a series of ‘Learning Hubs’ which are large shared classroom spaces surrounded by breakout spaces that offer students a range of different learning activities: digital making, quiet and reading space etc. Because up to three teachers share a hub, the collaboration that takes place in them mean students have access to a range of teacher strengths.

Case study: Albany Senior High School

Learning common with presentation space (rear), meeting rooms and activity space (right)Albany’s large ‘learning commons’ host three-four concurrent classes at any one point in time. The classes are mixed in both areas of learning and year levels so there is a lot of cross-pollination. Each learning common is home to six teachers drawn from a range of different learning areas and these teachers work together as a team on each individual’s teaching as inquiry project, meaning the informal support and observations taking place every lesson are used to improve each teacher’s practice.

Case study: Hingaia Peninsula School

A learning studio showing breakout spaces (left) and shared teaching space (centre).Hingaia’s studios are shared by up to three teachers and are composed of a central space which is surrounded by several breakout spaces which act as ‘caves’ and ‘campfires’. A student working centrally in the hub has access to private study space, digital production space (including greenscreen) and group collaboration space. Teachers are able to truly combine classes and arrange learning according to student needs and interest. They’re also able to facilitate the ‘flow’ of student learning through a range of different processes.

When Henry Ford said of his Model T cars ‘You can have any colour you like… as long as it’s black’, he could just as easily have been talking about high school when I was young. Apart from a few amazing teachers who were as inspiring as they were enthusiastic, most lessons were pretty black and grim. For the most part we sat down, faced the front, and copied down notes from overhead transparencies. If we were lucky, once or twice a year we might do something interactive or practical.

Thankfully, Henry-Ford-style learning has disappeared from most classrooms, but there’s no escaping the fact that we ask many of our best teachers to inspire and engage young people in buildings designed around the time Henry Ford was making cars. Unless you’re lucky enough to teach in a classroom that’s less that 10 or 15 years old, it’s a fact that the design of your school was not informed by a good understanding of how the brain learns. We’ve made huge strides in cognitive science over the last 15 years, and this has resulted in pedagogies that embrace the nature of learning: they are personalised, socially constructed, differentiated, responsive (and often initiated by the students themselves), and connected to authentic contexts and the world outside.

Student learning

So if we were to design physical learning environments that matched and supported what we know about learning, what features would they have?

Flexibility: the ability to combine two classes into one and team-teach, split a class into small groups and spread them over a wider area or combine different classes studying complementary learning areas.

Openness: modern learning environments traditionally have fewer walls, more glass and often use the idea of a learning common (or hub) which is a central teaching and learning space which can be shared by several classes. The ability to observe and learn from the teaching of others, and be observed in return. Access to what other learning areas and level are learning so that teaching complements and builds on

Access to resources (including technology): typically a learning common is surrounded by breakout spaces allowing a range of different activities: for instance some students reading, some engaging in project space or using wet areas, reflecting, presenting and displaying or learning in a group. There is often a mixture of wireless and wired technology which means students have access to technology as and when they need it, within the flow of their learning.

So modern learning environments promote better student learning, but are there other advantages? Well the big one is teacher learning. More open and flexible spaces also create more collaborative communities of practice for teachers. Having access to the teaching practice of one’s colleagues; to model and to be modelled to, supports the development of effective teaching practice far more than teaching in an isolated, private space. This ‘de-privatisation of practice’ means that honest exploration of teacher strengths and weaknesses can take place in an open and supportive environment.

Beginning and provisionally-registered teachers have far more support around them in open learning spaces. Their progress can be monitored, supported and celebrated by their more experienced colleagues and ongoing low-level mentoring is easy to put in place because they have seasoned professionals to the left and the right of them.